Lee Mead, Tarrangower Times
As you probably already know, Maldon township was discovered by heritage architects during the 1960s and recognised as having a significant number of original, unique, intact gold-mining era buildings and streetscapes. And as a consequence, was declared Victoria’s First Notable Town by the National Trust.
To honour and highlight this award, some time in the 1970s the National Trust provided Maldon with special street signs to inform everyone of our ‘uniqueness’ as they entered the township. These were attached to the existing timber town entrance signs on the roads that were most used by ‘city folk’, the Bendigo, Castlemaine and Newstead Roads.
Over the past 50 years these signs have weathered and deteriorated and even been vandalised, resulting in only two very dilapidated signs remaining (on Maldon-Newstead Road and Bendigo-Maldon Road). A few community members recently became concerned that very soon these two remaining signs would no longer be intact or upright.
However, there is a happy ending to the story; the two signs have now been restored and re-erected and should stand honourably for another few decades. These photos show the Bendigo-Maldon Road sign before and after restoration.
This small community project has been a hugely successful collaboration between a few of our local volunteer groups and the Mount Alexander Shire. Thanks very much to members of Maldon Heritage Network, Maldon Museum and Archives Association and Maldon Men’s Shed and to the local works team from Mount Alexander Shire who also made a significant and enthusiastic contribution.
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 2 August 2024.
